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(_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Pauline Bancroft Flach_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Pauline Bancroft Flach_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Jessie Brochner_)
(_Trans. from Swedish by Pauline Bancroft Flach_)
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1919
_Copyright, 1899, by_ DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages_
IX PALAZZO GERACI AND PALAZZO CORVAJA 270
“_When Antichrist comes, he shall seem as Christ_”
It was at the time when Augustus was emperor in Rome and Herod was king in Jerusalem.
It happened once upon a time that a very great and holy night sank down over the earth. It was the darkest night ever seen by man; it seemed as if the whole earth had passed under a vault. It was impossible to distinguish water from land, or to find the way on the most familiar paths. And it could not be otherwise, for not a ray of light came from the sky. All the stars stayed in their houses, and the fair moon kept her face turned away.
And just as intense as the darkness was the silence and the calm. The rivers stood still in their course; the wind did not stir, and even the leaves of the aspen ceased to tremble. Any one walking by the sea would have found that the waves no longer broke on the shore, and the sand of the desert did not crunch under the wanderer’s foot. Everything was as if turned to stone and without motion, in order not to disturb the holy night. The grass did not dare to grow, the dew could not fall, and the flowers feared to exhale their perfume.
During that night the beasts of prey did not hunt, the serpents did not sting, the dogs did not bay. And what was even more wonderful, none of the inanimate things would have disturbed the holiness of the night by lending themselves to an evil deed. No false key could open a lock, and no knife could shed blood.